Democrat Mary Peltola defeats Sarah Palin to become first Native Alaskan woman to win congressional race

Former state legislator Mary Peltola beat former governor Republican governor Sarah Palin to become the first Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress in almost fifty years.

Ms Peltola, a former state representative whose mother was Yup’ik, will also be the first Native Alaskan to represent the state since it formally joined the union as a state in 1959.

She responded to the result by tweeting: “It is a GOOD DAY.”

Alaska’s sole congressional seat opened earlier this year when Representative Don Young, the longest-serving Republican congressman, died. Mr Young won a special election himself in 1973.

The race serves as a boon to Democrats after they held a seat in a special election in New York’s 19th district last week. It also shows the salience of protecting abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v Jackson decision overturned Roe v Wade earlier this year. Ms Peltola ran heavily on protecting abortion rights along with focusing heavily on worker’s rights and fishing in the state.

Ms Peltola win marks Alaska’s first test of its new ranked-choice voting system, wherein the top four voter recipients head to the general election. In the general election, voters rank their choices in order of preferences.

After the first round of votes are counted, the candidate who earned the fewest number of votes is eliminated and voters’ second choice earns their votes. This continues until one candidate receives more than half the vote.

Ms Palin beat Democratic former state legislator Mary Peltola and Nick Begich III, whom despite hailing from Alaska’s most prominent Democratic family ran as a Republican. Mr Begich placed third and more of his voters’ second choice entries went to Ms Palin than Ms Peltola.

The Democrat’s victory comes despite the fact Republicans’ aggressive “Rank the Red” campaign to ensure that Republican voters ranked Mr Begich and Ms Palin as their top-two choices.

Ms Palin will serve the duration of Mr Young’s term until January and then will also have to run for a full term against Ms Peltola and Mr Begich, along with Libertarian candidate Chris Bye after fellow Republican Tara Sweeney ended her campaign.